With businesses scaling up and expanding across nations, there is more demand for evolved international transactions. Which solution is best for you?
Cross-border payments have introduced winds of change in the financial exchange between businesses. You can now skip the sluggish bank transfers and geographical restrictions. The entire purpose of this payment cycle is to promote the adoption of a global strategy and offer customers diverse payment options. It is a perfect gateway to align with rapid digitization, supporting a global marketplace. By opting for cross-border payment options, you embrace the opportunity to enter new markets and access new customer bases.
Cross-border payments are comprised of payers and payees in different countries, allowing hassle-free exchange of money between business entities. Studies indicate that B2B cross-border payments are valued at $186.2 trillion. And by 2027, its value is expected to cross $250 trillion within the global business ecosystem.
While using these advanced payment channels, you need to keep their efficiency levels in check. Based on various criteria, such as speed, costs, success rates, and security, select the platform that is best for you.
Since cross-border payments are in the picture, your brands can deliver personalized customer experiences by presenting them with popular regional methods. You will find that most of these channels are mobile-enabled, making it convenient for you to schedule payments and invoices from anywhere. The flexibility that these cross-border payments offer allows you to expand your reach and business networks.
Which cross-border payment solutions should you choose?
While cross-border payment channels offer flexibility and an opportunity to grow your business across miles, choosing a channel that works for you is our recommendation. Depending on the countries you are transacting with and their government regulations, you may be unable to avail of all these options. Yet, these are among the top picks to consider for your international money transfers.
Top cross-border payment solutions
Airwallex
Integrating Airwallex allows you to experience a seamless and cost-effective way of performing international transactions. It simplifies the process while providing access to multi-currency accounts, real-time exchange rates, and competitive foreign exchange services.
You can incorporate strong compliance measures that promote secure and efficient cross-border payments for B2B brands. Aiwallex’s seamless platform enables you to apply current business tools, providing a smooth experience for managing foreign transactions. The platform is equipped with advanced security features and compliance that make it a choice you can rely on for efficient financial transactions.
Wise
Wise, earlier TransferWise, offers cost-effective alternatives for brands to participate in overseas money transfers. You can rely on this solution— trusted by millions of customers worldwide due to its user-friendly interface and robust technology.
Since this payment network implements financial inclusivity, you are able to perform cross-border transactions that are accessible to all.
Nium
Nium helps you move around finances while keeping risks at bay. It is a good accelerator for brand growth operating on real-time payment infrastructure. When using this channel, collect, convert, and disburse funds to accounts, wallets, or cards and collect locally in 35 markets. Since it holds licenses and authorizations in over 40 countries, it is a good option for seamless transactions and compliance. And the best part is it is not location-bound.
Corpay
Take your brand to great heights by choosing Corpay. Its vast payment capabilities tap into new revenue streams, giving you more options to expand your business network. Corpay’s dedicated team of subject matter experts is a doorway of opportunities for international clients. By opting for this platform, you sign up for seamless services and 24/6 support available in over 200 countries.
Rapyd
Rapyd’s all-in-one payments platform propels your brand to tap into diverse capabilities such as bank transfers, cash payments, and card acquiring. Its comprehensive solution is embedded with integrated tools, including fraud management, compliance, and reconciliation. Your payment exchange offers a seamless and secure experience.
TransferMate
The best feature of this global fintech provider is its user-friendly platform, allowing you to process international transactions effortlessly. You can leverage it to overcome the complexities of international transfers while delivering transparency.
Spanning across 170 countries, TransferMate will not disappoint you with its robust customer service and streamlined global payment processes.
PPRO
PPRO offers access to an extensive network of alternative payment options. It allows you to accept payments promptly and securely. PPRO specializes in localized payment infrastructure and services, which helps you skip the complexities of international payments and compliance regulations. You can easily expand your client reach throughout the world and tap into new markets.
SWIFT
This cross-border payment solution has become a dominant method preferred by several global brands. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) offers you a vast resource of information messaging networks. With SWIFT, you can experience a seamless transfer with bands and other financial institutions. All you need are the details of the payer, payee, and the SWIFT code of relevant locations.
Ripple
Ripple is the majority holder of the XRP cryptocurrency operating on a blockchain platform to facilitate international payments. This platform is ideal if you are looking for cryptocurrency liquidity, digital asset management, and private ledger insurance. When these products are enabled with RippleNet, you increase your reach to a network of financial partners across the globe. It allows connection with banks and various financial institutions as an alternative system to move funds across geographical boundaries.
Salt.pe
Salt.pe is a neo-banking solution stitched together to ease payments and documentation by shifting to a digital-first and automated end-to-end platform. Choosing Salt as a platform for international transactions simplifies and streamlines financial transfers. You get access to services connected with cross-border payments, currency exchanges, and fintech solutions.
Wrapping up
Digitization has introduced tools that have drastically transformed the business dynamics. This revolution extends to payments and invoice processing. Transitioning from a time where international transactions would be complex and a real hassle, we have delved into a world where it can happen in a matter of hours. Staying tuned to the trending cross-border payment channels serves as a guide to opting for the best platforms. Whether you prefer transparency and low fees for cross-border payments, you have various options. With these channels, you can rest assured that your transactions are executed successfully and securely.
Strategic Brand Development: Direct it or lose to your competitors
In our brand development series, we have covered that the brand is more than a logo. We firmly believe that a brand is a strategic— and, by extension, creative— expression of an organization’s product and culture.
Brands cannot discover success if they stay in silos. The competition in the current market is far too fierce. It has also been enhanced by the mass access to social media. Your potential buyers are always on the hunt for novel experiences.
While that may satisfy their hunger for dopamine, brands also need something concrete. An identity that builds trust in the minds and hearts of the buyer. But it isn’t easy; this identity is hidden under layers of creative thinking and strategic development.
The strategy is not as straightforward as many believe. Leaders, especially finance and other chief execs believe these strategies come overnight. That they can be predicted. This is not true.
Ask any creative you know— or your CMO and they will consult you with two ideas: Creative endeavors need long-term planning and experimentation.
With the rise of influencer marketing, stakeholders and upper management have begun to think going viral with each post is necessary while minimizing the risks inherent to creative endeavors.
The CMO must walk on a double-edged sword of virality, quality, playing a safe game, and getting organizational buy-in on riskier ideas.
And it all begins with a single word: Strategy.
Brand Strategy is not disconnected from organizational strategies and growth.
Strategy gets thrown around a lot in the brand development context. And that is amazing! Upper management is finally on board with brands as a financial driver of success.
What was a centuries-old truth has been rediscovered by corporate leaders: Creativity pays off. And in dividends.
Leaders have to balance this fine line between creative success and failure. No one can predict how the audience will react to your creativity.
The questions that race in the minds of top leaders can range from: –
What if there is outrage?
to
What if it is ignored?
And that’s why brands, for most companies, are just social media. CMOs are frustrated by the lack of resources and the rising need to differentiate from other brands. All the while, management breathes heavily on their necks for similar success.
The strategies that most organizations create lack cohesion and substance.
Brands reflect a company’s culture and personality, and the strategies an organization takes to showcase it reveal the minds behind it.
Your solution must speak to its intended audience. Consistently. That is where strategizing begins.
As market saturation increases and start-ups face a90% failure rate, they must amplify their voice and showcase their unique proposition.
In the famous 1996 HBR called What is strategy, Michael E Porter, the father of the modern strategy field, says
“A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. It must deliver greater value to customers, create comparable value at a lower cost, or do both. The arithmetic of superior profitability follows: delivering greater value allows a company to charge higher average unit prices; greater efficiency results in lower average unit costs.”
It is a timeless piece of advice that is still used to date. Think of all the blogs you have read on brand marketing. It reflects this advice of unique proposition in some form or the other.
Strategies are dynamic
Brand Strategies can be divided into three parts:
The messaging
The planning
The execution or delivery.
And yet, the three can vary from organization to organization. But how?
Strategic implementation requires the understanding of various perspectives and merging them into a cohesive whole.
Strategic brand development requires a lot of moving parts to come together.
Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that a brand is disconnected from their organization. It is not.
As such, brand strategies must reflect it.
What do you think inspires brand loyalty? It’s customer service. Businesses that excel at customer service see a revenue growth of 7-8% above their market standards.
But what does “exceptional customer service” mean? The answer to this lies in crafting a strategy.
And strategy is elusive. It is an abstract concept with a high failure rate. And you must understand it as such. When Marketing leaders are looking to implement their strategies, they must hire the right talent.
As with any creative endeavor, your employees must understand and align with your vision. That means hiring from diverse backgrounds. Luckily, the creative field is filled with them.
Then begins the strategy. Once you have your team, your brand must focus on your message.
The Message
For a brand to thrive, it must show the world its mission through a creative lens. However, as with B2C companies, B2B industries do not have the luxury of targeting everyone. Some of the solutions exist for a specific problem.
And these big B2B deals have various committees involved in buying. The consistency of the message is crucial for a brand strategy.
It must address the specific problem your brand is aiming to solve. Like Semrush, does your brand want to democratize SEO?
Or does your brand aim to solve some other problems? It is the message that displays it. Even though it may change form as an ad, blog, social media copy, website, or the like, the core of this message remains the same.
It is the easiest thing to create because you and your teams know what you do differently. The trick is to consistently say it in unique ways that resonate with your audience. And that is achieved through understanding them.
To recap:
The message is your brand’s solution.
It changes form based on the creatives.
Crafting a message that resonates requires in-depth market research.
The Planning
Phase 1
Strategies are designed to give an organization an edge over the competition and an efficient way of doing things. For brands, the planning stage has to begin with its customers. The common questions are usually demographic, firmographic, and geographic. But as the buyers have evolved, so have the questions.
Where does your prospect search for potential partnerships?
What tools will you need to reach them?
What are you offering that your competitor is not?
What is your customer interested in?
Are there any specific behaviors your buyer exhibits?
For example, look at Salesforce’s Trailblazer program. When the community first started, it was one of a kind. A forum based on solving knowledge problems regarding the tool.
It took off.
And organizations still emulate the program to this day. It came about because Salesforce found out that their developers loved solving problems and then sharing them. They realized there was a section of knowledge workers dedicated to tackling and sharing problems; it gave them satisfaction.
Understanding your customer opens up the possibilities to understand the tools you will need, the type of content you and your teams must develop for success, and where it must be displayed.
Planning for a brand requires identification of the channels for reaching the audience.
Phase 2
There are many shiny tools available in the market, ranging from business approaches to AI tools that cost a decent buck.
Your strategies will have to take it all into account. However, every brand needs to self-reflect and understand its position in the market.
Are they a new brand in an old market?
An old brand in the new market?
And all the combinations in the middle. As brand strategies go, planning requires understanding the budgeting capabilities of your brand.
Say if you can spend only 100$ on an ad, are you getting the ROAS required to break even? Or if the creative you are commissioning for more than 8000$ is making sense to your audience.
Many strategies fail because they work to imitate rather than innovate. Your endeavor should make sense in your brand’s context.
Take invisible branding or un-branding as an example: this type of strategy presents a minimalist and cost-effective approach to branding. Leaving logos and designs behind in favor of providing high-quality products.
This approach will work based on the context of the brand. And its personality.
For smaller brands, they must know the type of personality they want to show the world. While large brands have the freedom of exploration.
Recapping planning:
Understand your customer. Market research is crucial.
Crafting a compelling message and executing ideas is based on buyer behavior
A brand must think of its budget before planning a campaign
Strategies that imitate rather than innovate might lose sense of their brand’s context
The execution or delivery
Strategies involve a lot of moving parts for success. As with organizations, strategic ideas cannot remain in silos. That is why Go-to-market works so well. It is based on silo breakdown.
The message and your planning are as good as the execution. A lot of strategies fail in this stage.
And why is that? It is because the tools you are using are similar to those of your competitors. Think about it: you have access to AI, and so do they. They have access to CRMs, and so do you.
We have reached a saturation of tools. To break this competitive deadlock, an organization must focus on their teams’ innate creativity. They will drive the execution.
A company must create a new or innovate an old way of delivery.
For example, Salesforce staged its famous protest outside the doors of Siebel. Siebel had all the tools Salesforce did. But they did not have one certain aspect that made Salesforce today what it is: Marc Benioff’s eccentricity.
He was not afraid to take risks. And strategic execution is about risk, experimentation, and pivoting.
It is the fail fast, pivot quickly attitude that leads strategies to succession.
Execution is unique to your organization. We cannot stress this enough. If it were not, your competitors might be able to copy you and level the playing field.
Kao is one of Japan’s producers of household items, makeup, and toiletries. But in 1992, they came to dominate the floppy disk market. But they faced two distinct problems
There was a lot of competition in the retail floppy disk market.
The floppy disk market was changing. It was wildly profitable, but the profits wouldn’t last indefinitely.
They solved the second problem by identifying how quickly they would need to generate profits and leave the market.
On the other hand, they solved the first by identifying that their surface science enabled them to create high-quality floppy disks with no dropout on playback and then positioning as an OEM and selling to the public market. This move made Kao the dominant force in the FD market.
Imagine the creative genius behind the idea. Someone in Kao realized that their method of delivering cosmetic products could be applied to floppy disks.
And they executed it by understanding the market needs of their time.
This strategic execution was a brand shift. A successful one.
Any brand that understands its offers can effectively diversify and provide value to broad customer segments.
Strategic execution can thus be distilled into: –
Understanding your product
Finding the market that will appreciate your product
Building a message around it
Planning for financial success by looking at the market trends and values
Identifying the position you can adopt relative to your market
Entering the field
For SaaS brands, all of this plays out digitally (for the most part).
Be unique and take risks. Brand strategy is about the creative identification of success.
Brand Strategy has always been thought of as an abstract idea. Something unreachable and delegated to social media posts.
But it is more, so much more. It is a systematic approach, similar to organizational development. Businesses that believe a brand exists in the pages of online media will fail to reach their audience. And their message will drown in obscurity.
From thought leadership to reaching the right audience, a brand strategy has to be more than content, ads, and creatives with no direction.
At Ciente.io, we understand that a brand is a tangible identity of an organization. We help orchestrate an experience for your users. And build strategies that enable you to reach your relevant audience through compelling content.
Marketing Automation ROI: Balancing Creativity and Efficiency to Improve Customer Experiences
Can marketing automation combine creativity and robotics to help businesses prioritize customer satisfaction and significantly boost their ROIs?
As humans living alongside numerous tech innovations, we fear one thing – losing control over their functionalities. We pride ourselves on the hard work alongside the tech tools we invent to make the same task more convenient.
Where does the extent of our demands lie?
AI—a step forward like no other—was developed to help us. It makes innovating, i.e., thinking and doing processes, easier. Machine learning, algorithm-based personalization, and AI, among others, are transforming the market dynamics.
Efficiency is significant in helping boost productivity and generating revenue, but customer experience is essential.
In B2B marketing, automation can take care of your repetitive daily tasks and allow you to focus on tasks that require your utmost attention, human strategy, and creative juices. Because efficiency enhances the quality of your work.
Automating your processes requires understanding your audience.
In a landscape where customers are the largest assets for a B2B brand – they can make or break you. Once you outline their preferences and needs, and streamline your operations and services according to them, it can lead to imminent success in the market.
This is why almost every B2B business has leveraged personalization. Because in marketing, the customer is at the center of all your “next steps”, operations, and planning.
Automation helps streamline your strategies to make them customer-centric. It makes the processes effortless for the marketing teams and reduces additional prospect/customer effort.
But this is a simple guide for why we seek out automation to improve marketing efforts and mundane tasks. From employees to stakeholders, we all possess this single rulebook.
And the most fascinating aspect of automation? Its practical application has been long since tried and tested.
Have you ever heard of Charles Saunders? He introduced the first mechanical automation or automated grocery shopping vending machine, back in 1936.
This automated machine’s name was Keedoozle or as everyone assumes, just a nonsensical way of saying – the key does it all.
Saunders reasons this was because the workings of his machine were ahead of the public thinking during that time.
What was the ultimate vision behind this innovation?
Eliminating the need for clerks and checkers. However, in a capitalist society witnessing a fight between humans and machines, what was the actual purpose?
Yes, automation in this case focused on customer-centrism. The goal was to make the shopping experience seamless and fast without the need for a middleman. The underlying problem was the lack of space for shortcomings if the machines failed to cater to the consumers.
And it did fail their expectations. The “key” cannot do it all but requires a balance.
An equilibrium between the human attributes (consumers) and the machine becomes necessary.
As fascinating as this invention was for the marketing landscape, the resources required to confront consumer challenges were scarce. With their increasing demands, the speed and efficiency of the machine involved were the biggest obstacles here.
The customer perspective holds immense potential. Your buyers should accept your marketing messages. If not, the strategies are deemed hollow and wasteful.
The overall technological expense to keep up-to-date with the changes required in the Keedoozle to improve the self-service customer experience was on the heavier side.
Where the automated machine was supposed to reduce any customer effort, it caused delays and resulted in incorrect orders. This resulted in an impaired brand reputation for Saunders and a loss of engagement.
It was quite revolutionary to develop a stick-on button (available for $5) that placed an order for detergents, paper towels, and other similar products to be restocked. Reordering common household products, a repetitive task, highlighted consumer loyalty.
But with the growing tech landscape, and the advent of Amazon’s Alexa, this became obsolete. Simply, because Alexa was more adept at making reordering effortless than the dash button. However, it could not disclose the price of an item, and while there were safeguards in place, a slight touch could place an order that wasn’t necessary.
These minor challenges seem major in the face of tech innovations that can do the job better.
Fascination with tech advancements is not enough to keep your customers loyal. When new installations, such as automation, are integrated into the workflow and overall operations, the need is to weave them across your entire brand and streamline the workings optimally.
Automation’s objective is to substitute human efforts, not human beings themselves.
One that can also identify and address gaps in the automation processes itself. Because then how else do you refine customer relationships if your teams’ systems might potentially face disruptions?
For consumers, making purchasing decisions in their day-to-day lives works as a psychological script.
If they trust your brand enough, they will repurchase your services. And there is a huge bridge between repurchasing and actual brand loyalty.
Automation is the foundational brick bridging this gap.
Marketing efforts should focus on improving customer interaction and purchasing processes. In B2B brands, customers hold a high profile and most of them themselves are well-established brands. This is why consumers often require instant gratification in the most cost-effective way possible.
The second purchase holds more significance than the first one.
Your customers are not merely passive pawns but active players in the value-creation process of your brand. So, with the help of automated workflows, marketing teams personalize campaigns and carry out intense research on the market.
The first simple step in any marketing processes is understanding your customers. To do this successfully, your marketing teams are required to collect, segment, and analyze raw data before any of it becomes obsolete.
Data is at the core of why marketing automation has become paramount.
This data – in the form of contacts or numbers – has to be convoluted into a unified system for starters, to make sense of it all.
How do we do it?
In Salesforce’s partnership with Vonage, a cloud communications platform, Salesforce addresses how automation helped develop a unified but comprehensive view of their customers’ data profiles.
They established how Slack helped them enhance their customer experience.
Executing automation also assists in gathering and analyzing data, bringing the teams together. This could be the step that should be executed before we focus on automating the workflow. It is integral to making automation smoother, resulting in improvised marketing efforts.
Having all data in one space is crucial and relieves your team of manually, searching for each customer’s information. Platforms such as Slack, where your teams can access databases and organize content in one place, facilitate this.
It saves you time by helping you escalate and prioritize tasks.
And Slack offers you space to execute this strategically.
Slack allows the user to set up specific triggers. A ticket is tagged urgent or high priority on a channel that usually comprises a keyword acting as a trigger.
The first step is setting up a trigger defined by specific criteria. This input is given by the user.
If the criteria match the input, Slack’s automated workflow kickstarts an escalation sequence where if the task marked “high-priority” remains unresolved, the marketing automation workflow escalates it.
After this trigger, an automatic message is forwarded to the engineering team which contains the details of the issue, and the link to the prioritized but routine task.
The ticket management system in Slack tracks issues that require immediate attention and updates ticket statuses.
Lastly, if an issue remains unresolved within a specific period, there are automated and scheduled reminders sent to the concerned party, keeping the priority issue in focus.
The advantage of this automation technology is enhanced employee expertise on your marketing team, driving more value than general.
Further, marketers should demonstrate the value their strategies gain to the stakeholders. This requires as little friction as possible. Hence, marketing automation is the steering wheel to foster conversion rates and customer lifetime value.
This same trigger formula works for your customers.
Have you noticed that Amazon sends you a notification as a reminder when you abandon a cart with a certain number of items?
This is one of the ways to enhance marketing automation ROI – assisting your business in taking the ideal marketing action based on specific customer behaviors. In B2B, these triggers could include website visits, clicks, form-filling, registrations, etc.
Marketing automation proactively helps facilitate higher conversion rates by optimizing lead management strategies and streamlining them with other marketing objectives.
But in marketing, no matter how adept your strategies are, most often, one cannot determine which strategy might work best. This is crucial to understand before executing it definitively.
This is where A/B testing is a savior. To elevate positive ROI, take it one step ahead.
By adopting this, your brand can improve the reach of valuable and high-quality content.
According toHubSpot, inbound marketing centers on three specific elements – attract, engage, and delight. And as marketers, we understand the wonders that valuable and informative content can do.
But how do we know when and where does a prospect interact with the marketing content? What is the proof that one headline on a landing page performs better than the other?
Your marketing leaders want proof that your strategies will add value before they expend any resources. Hence, they prioritize marketing automation ROI because it highlights the cost-effectiveness and profitability of the automation processes.
Marketing Automation ROI = Total Net Returns on Investments/Total Costs
Beyond instincts, A/B testing offers evidence of your marketing strategy’s effectiveness because the numbers are your hidden gems.
For example, you are deciding the size of the download button for your whitepaper landing pages. How do you know which size is preferred? Marketing automation platform like Zoho CRM come to your rescue.
Your measuring metric is the number of clicks. So, you differentiate two sets of users, A and B, for both sizes of the download button. Here, marketing automation software offers you leverage where you can demonstrate different buttons for different users randomly to gather accurate data.
Marketing automation tools refine A/B testing by offering tools for fostering marketing effectiveness, especially while developing email campaigns.
Kaiser Fung, in aHarvard Business Review article, states that A/B testing is the most basic experiment, and with the increasing demands, wouldn’t it be better to conduct more complex tests?
Much like A/B/C/D testing, which is called multivariate testing, given the huge and diverse customer base. For example, what if, along with the size of the download button, one has to consider its color as well?
This is why marketing automation platform plays a significant role in reducing friction during decision-making processes.
Its benefits don’t merely focus on the customers but also the employees and decision-makers. Hence, due to its immense adoption, the latest trend in this field concerns generative AI revolutionizing marketing automation tools.
AI and automation are two of the most widespread tech that is being adopted by brands. There is no doubt about that. IBM reports thatthree out of four CMOs believe that generative AI is set to transform marketing permanently.
Understanding why automation is necessary is not a challenging task here.
Even focusing on just optimizing the marketing automation ROI can dilute your efforts. However, what comes next is what is inherently vital.
While the tech handles repetitive tasks, marketers can focus their attention elsewhere – on the customers, in a way that dismantles marketing myopia.
Over-reliance on automated processes cannot help eliminate this. If there are shortcomings in the analyzed or represented data, automation can still continue to result in misguided decision-making.
The lack of strategic vision and too narrow an understanding of who your customers are leads to this myopic vision.
Attempting to improve customer satisfaction and customer journey, marketing and sales teams may utilize AI to create high-end content for increased efficiency and productivity. In an article titled “How Automation Is Reshaping the Industry” in Forbes, Krishan Arora, the CEO & Founder of The Arora Project, asserts:
“What I think will happen is that there will be two cohorts of marketers: one that uses AI to increase productivity and results and one that does not. Those who do not will have a hard time keeping up with the AI-boosted marketing teams.”
The sort of parallel drawn above can take away the essence of this debate. AI versus humans has become the cliché in domains that still stick to the traditional platforms while aiming to stand out in the increasingly tech-savvy world.
One cannot avoid human errors, no matter how meticulous the workflow is. Hence, the use of automation processes in repetitive everyday tasks is understandable, but the discussion regarding implementing its use in the field of creativity, which underscores marketing, is yet to come to an end.
The annual Christmas Coca-Cola advertisement faced severe backlash. Why?
It had viewers fuming and mockery the motions and “artistry” included in the video. The reception, in short, was a hugely negative one. While the New York Post covered how this was a “dystopian nightmare”, other publications mentioned the deep uncanniness that left the audiences unmoved.
Coca-Cola wanted to pay homage to its “Holidays Are Coming” 1995 advert, but all in vain.
Tech advancements such as generative AI were supposed to be used for these tasks. So, when Krishan Arora underlines that there will be a stark difference between marketing and sales teams that use AI and those that don’t, we hope this is not what she inherently means.
Yes, AI is increasingly new and requires certain developments in its functionalities.
Additionally, we know that as creatives, our vision carries weightage that AI doesn’t recognize. We seek personalized experiences and dynamic content. And even when it does, it spits out an uninspiring copy of what was done by humans decades before.
So, the marketing domain where automation and AI become significant is entirely isolated from this sphere that has always entailed creativity.
Instead of expression, it plays a significant role in customer engagement. While it will offer you ample space to thread your creativity into a piece, AI is the copilot, and automation can identify patterns and gather relevant data.
Focusing on improving marketing automation ROI is not merely a juggle with numbers. Streamlining the process adds transparency to your business and elevates profitability. But automation isn’t limited to robotic processes that make the job efficient.
It is all about finding the delicate balance between human creativity and mechanic strategizing that can add value to your content and operations. Thus, increasing the ROI of marketing automation.
Generating Opportunities the Significance of SDRs and BDRs for Businesses
How can brands bridge the gap between marketing efforts and actual sales while addressing dynamic customer preferences and pain points?
Harvard Business Review penned an article on how crucial it is to bridge the gap between external factors that closely impact customers’ lives and how these influence their decision-making.
The major objective of a sales team is to engage prospects and influence them to become paying customers. After all, human behavior is an interplay of stimulus and response. We feed particular knowledge or information to prospects so their response converts into a purchase.
And much of the sales process depends on how you approach and communicate with consumers. It is essential to forge a concrete professional relationship with the potential buyer.
Developing a relationship at this stage is daunting. So, where do you start?
You begin by reading and understanding your target audience. You have to find a balance between taking a customer-centric and patience-centric approach that prioritizes the customer’s pain points and offers them comprehensive solutions.
Sounds simple, right?
This doesn’t even comprise 20% of what we mean when we say that understanding your target audience is crucial. Outlining the factors that influence your prospects – the external ones – should also be considered.
Priorities are shifting with tech advancements taking over the globe in a whirlwind and related cultural shifts impacting what matters to people. This is also the focus of a well-researched and outlined Go-To-Market strategy.
It’s not merely about marketing or sales. Any heterogeneity can lead to organizational complexities and prove detrimental for the sales reps – a combined effort.
A 360-degree approach that aligns all the teams and focuses on just one goal: delivering value to their customers, which is only possible when the strategy works synergistically with the customers. An article by Harvard Business Review on life-centric businesses also alludes to this, asserting that organizations should keep up. With dynamic customer expectations evolving at every turn, solutions to their pain points are not fast and efficient enough.
Acknowledging the diversity of customer expectations is crucial.
After the global pandemic, the face of customers has changed. They have become increasingly self-reliant, whereas businesses continue to perceive them as a source of revenue. Even if embracing tech innovations has made enormous room for smooth communication, we cannot renounce the complexities of the buyer journey.
Customers are inconsistent and spontaneous, which calls for complex, adaptable, and well-rounded solutions. Multi-level sales support is also the need of the hour across the sales landscape.
This is where different representatives come in.
They generally utilize two distinct approaches: a consistent and aggressive one that might draw some prospects in or a more subtle and convincing one that focuses on a group of potential buyers likely to purchase.
These representatives do just that. Within GTM, sales development engages and sparks conversations with potential customers to foster interest in them. The sales development executives are responsible for generating and sourcing new leads.
SDRs and BDRs are in charge of top-of-the-funnel lead generation – either through inbound or outbound activities. They focus on the early stage of opportunities, transforming a cold lead into a warm one – as we know, this is what sales development generally means.
While most companies don’t highlight any clear difference between SDRs and BDRs, there are notable distinctions that we should pay attention to. One of the most crucial ones is whether the sales representative deals with inbound or outbound leads.
SDRs and BDRs can be differentiated according to buying characteristics – intent versus interest – that a prospect shows.
What if the prospect shows no intent?
Isn’t their readiness to purchase that demarcates which executive handles them?
SDRs prioritize inbound leads.
In alignment with this, an SDR or Sales Development Representative manages new buyers and is one of the key players in closing deals. So, what are some of the most required attributes while dealing with new customers? Understanding the products and brand solutions yourself.
Generally, their functionalities are self-directed with minimal to no support. So, previous experience in qualifying leads can go a long way here because of the diversity and complexities inherently present across customer expectations.
The sales executive finds the origins of a specific demand, understand diversity in personnel across buying centers, and map customized solutions to satiate dispersed needs.
So, SDRs assess the customers’ needs and preferences and whether they are interested. There is negligible buying intent here, but interest takes the driving wheel. The characteristic of buying matters the most. The lead might not have a purchasing intent per se, but be inclined to hear what your brand offers. Hence, the SDRs ensure that this lead fits your brand’s ICP and instill help from marketing to identify the target accounts and gather their business data, such as revenue generation. Utilizing the details, they complete the presale tasks – gather the prospect’s data, educate them regarding the solution, and book meetings.
They work as a bridge the gap between the prospects and your solutions.
They follow the inbound approach by qualifying the prospects and guiding them through the sales pipeline until they grow into opportunities.
In B2B, SDRs’ primary step is to curate the buyer persona or the ICP to demarcate their ideal client.
They put together a list of prospects and focus on outreach to outline their BANT details. Booking meetings with the client businesses is significant. So, they meticulously consider the qualifying stage to save resources and time.
Do they fit the ICP? Are they worth pursuing? – These questions are simple but substantial to remember. Underlining the BANT guidelines also helps here.
SDRs also note the challenges and needs that may stand out while getting to know the prospect. This stage in the sales process seeks new buyers and churns out additional opportunities for existing customers.
Before finalizing the meetings, SDRs can reach out to the leads again. This is mostly done through email campaigns and content marketing. Their response during this stage holds significance. This can establish whether the leads have any interest at all.
Encouraging prospects to engage and establishing trust is paramount. While the prospects are researching and considering your proposal, you need to nurture their interest, even if it is minimal.
The nurturing efforts ultimately translate into booked meetings for the account executives (AEs). Now, an SDR has to prep the executive regarding the client.
This completes the SDR’s prime responsibilities. Their primary goal is to sell the solution to the lead and ensure they don’t lose them across the funnel, or at least how most organizations define this position.
However, BDRs carry different responsibilities.
They focus on potential opportunities, specifically generating leads, instead of qualifying ones they can pass off. Under BDRs, prospects are nurtured through cold emails. The focus is predominantly on curating a relationship first.
Like SDRs, BDRs also ensure that the prospects fit the brand’s ideal buyer persona. However, the inbound leads qualified by the SDRs are forwarded using content marketing techniques, such as leads who download your whitepapers or click on an ad.
Business Development Representatives focus on prospects brought into the funnel through cold emails or cold calls. The key responsbility is developing a relationship.
Why is developing a relationship necessary here – to offer required sales support to the prospects.
Business development is long-term value creation for an organization construed by leveraging customers, markets, and relationships.
Business development is not a quick tactic that can contribute to your revenue. But rather about curating value that stays for a long period for consistent business growth.
And where does this long-term value come from? Customers.
As discussed beforehand, customers are at the core of your business. Thus, they should be researched, especially the market they live in.
Of course, we cannot reach a customer if we do not target a particular market. But the notion here is that customers live within those specific markets, and it defines them.
We have come 360 degrees here.
Unlocking new markets can unlock new opportunities for your brand. Irrespective of the geography the prospect is based in, a BDR has to form a strong relationship. Factors such as demographics and lifestyle may work as determinants for BDRs, marking the foundation of their business relationship.
To address customer expectations, understanding those prospects is significant. Sales development plays a huge role in ensuring the GTM strategy is well-aligned and effective. They should develop outreach campaigns and social media strategies to reach potential customers.
The bottom role is generating and managing opportunities that add value to the business.
This has a huge influence on the success, and failure of your sales strategy. Because sales development prioritizes the prospects most likely to convert, i.e., create a pipeline of high-quality leads that fit your ICP.
Thus, saving time and resources to optimize sales processes and elevate customer acquisition.
Metaverse promises to bring a change. And that change has the potential to shift our relationship with the digital world. But- is it for the better?
Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse project has been trying to position itself as the future of the world. And he can back it up with strides in social technology.
Instagram and Facebook have enabled the sharing of creative ideas across the globe. From memes to artistic expressions, Meta has empowered the common person to spread their ideas to be seen and appreciated.
It is no joke to say Meta has revolutionized our planet. And many are concerned about the ramifications of this revolution. They think about the privacy and ethical drawbacks of these apps.
Meta has the majority of the market share in social media. Can we say our concerns are reflected in reality? It is not so. The planet is using Meta as its go-to social technology. Now, Mark Zuckerberg wants to take it a step further.
Mr Zuckerberg has brought us another marvel closer to his dream of computational evolution: The Meta Glasses— Orion!
It is promised to be the next evolution of our smart devices. The whole world, right at our eyes and fingertips.
The metaverse is an abstraction brought into the real world through technology.
Facebook’s Takeovers
Let’s take a look at a particular snapshot of tech history.
In a time when Meta was still called Facebook. The company became afraid of the social media platform known as Instagram.
Instagram, the hip and cool new tech was gaining rapid momentum. From their beautiful filters to their sleek design, it was fun to be on. Facebook realized this, and Mark was afraid that the platform would overtake his without needing to become a big business.
The model was that good.
So what did Facebook do? They bought Instagram and integrated them into the conglomerate in 2012. All for a small sum of 1$ billion.
Instagram became the most popular platform for young people (Before TikTok, that is). In the same vein, Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 but for a larger sum of 20$ billion.
And then bought Oculus— now known as Reality Labs— for 2$ billion.
The question in anyone’s mind would be: Why did Meta acquire these technologies? They had the resources to make it from scratch.
We can infer it from these three emails.
The first is from David Ebersman, talking Mergers and Acquisitions. He outlines three possible scenarios for Facebook and why the mergers would be beneficial for them.
And Mark Zuckerberg responded by being interested in two.
What he talks about is the integration of the social dynamics these companies offer and buying time so that they can outperform any competition that crops up.
In the third, he says he is excited about what companies could do together if they built on what they(the acquisitions in question) have invented into more people’s experience.
From what we know of Mark Zuckerberg he has been a visionary and savvy businessman. From Meta’s takeovers, we can assume he has the strategic acumen to understand what people want.
And to identify the technology that can deliver it to them. Meta has been acquiring all technologies to usher the user into a new experience.
In all senses of the idea: An immersive experience.
This immersive experience is being sculpted by Virtual and Augmented reality.
The Metaverse
Facebook’s rebranding into Meta was not just about changing the name. But the entire mission. They serve to bring the metaverse into reality.
The metaverse is a virtual world of creative possibilities in computation and holograms.
It is an abstraction of the fantastical, bought into reality by advanced technology and designs. Meta and extension, its founder believe the metaverse is the future of computation. Mixing audio, visual, and other sensory organs to make the user believe that what they are feeling is, in fact, part of reality.
In Zuckerberg’s terms — “The next platform will be even more immersive— an embodied experience where you are in the experience, not just looking at it. We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.”
Holograms. Virtual Avatars. Augmented Spaces. Everything that can be dreamt of, the metaverse can conjure. Humanity is now Alice, and our technology is the rabbit hole.
Meta draws a beautiful picture of unbound creativity. And apparently, that is the goal. The metaverse is not about Meta but about creators and developers.
In the closing lines of his founder’s letters, Mark says — “I’m dedicating our energy to this [Meta] — more than any other company in the world. If this is the future you want to see, I hope you will join us. The future is going to be beyond anything we can imagine.”
What does this mean for the future? What are the possibilities that leaders should look out for?
Marketing, tech, finance, and the arts. Everything stands to change with Meta.
Meta’s Orion
Sometime in the last decade or so, our work became knowledge work. Computing has taken over every aspect of our jobs. Look at the SaaS market. It would not exist without cloud computing.
And as the trends go, our computational devices are getting smaller and smaller. And more portable.
First, the laptops, then the tablets, and smartphones, and now Meta has unveiled what they hope is the future of computation— the VR glasses they call Orion.
The three create the holographic AR experience. The wireless puck runs the app logic. And helps the glasses stay compact.
The EMG wristband provides and captures feedback from your fingers for scrolling, swiping, playing, and interacting with the glasses. This is a fantastic piece of technology that uses sensors to translate electrical motor nerve signals into instructions for the glasses.
The glasses overlay objects and content onto their screens for an immersive experience. You must have seen people play pong or demonstration of Meta AI’s integration.
The glasses capture what you see, and the AI can elevate your experience by bringing your instructions to life.
In the demos, they asked the AI to create a recipe with all the ingredients users looked at.
The demo was full of basic things. Just a glimpse into what it can do.
But the real magic lies in its possibilities.
A tech with a promise of infinity
Smartphones and laptops opened up a new world. Staying connected every day and every moment became possible. But it is still a passive way of interaction.
Most people are consumers of content. Not interactors of it. What Meta offers, and this is most exciting for creatives (including marketing teams), is interaction.
Imagine, marketers. Imagine when your potential buyer can interact with your content with their sensory organs.
The potential of this tech sounds limitless. You could create an experience that takes them from one point to another. And make them feel in control of the experience, personalizing it to the individual at such a level that is unheard of.
The Orion, again potentially, promises to get the creative ideas you have off the ground with no limits in sight.
The only limitation would be budget, imagination, and talent.
The Limitations
And these are big limitations. To design experiences, marketers need game engines and developers to program these interactions with the glasses.
It would be Meta’s prerogative to create or integrate a programming language for the glasses. It is possible they might use drag-and-drop features to enable the creation of these experiences. Or give developers the option to choose.
These developmental choices would decide how businesses and creators interact with the glasses. And they would have to assign budgets to the development of the experiences.
Again, Meta would be able to control the expenses. Like Facebook Ads, they might create a platform made for the AR/VR experience. (This is conjecture on our part; we have no official news of this.)
The questions marketing teams and creators should consider for Orion and AR/VR should be:
How much would it cost to build the experience?
Does it have to be interactive, or can it give the illusion of interaction through presentation?
What are the tools you would need to execute the experience?
Is the creation process possible by your teams, and does your budget support it?
And, probably, the core question: Are these glasses true to their promise or just another fad?
Creators and marketing teams should be wary of fads before investing in them. But how do you know if a tech is just a fad? By the number of tech adoptees.
Like all answers in marketing, the market will tell you if this is the next iPhone.
Mark Manson, the infamous author of The subtle art of not giving a f*ck, writes in his blog— the attention economy.
It is an interesting read highlighting the importance of the resource known as attention. The pitfalls of not having attention and the way media weaponizes cheap content to get attention.
And Meta’s social media platforms are part of this ecosystem that demands attention. Some creators choose to create quality content, and some choose not to. Instead, they create sensationalized pieces. But this is not a new technique.
Now imagine the glasses on you all the time. Will we lose more of our attention to the void?
Yes, if we are not careful. Our technology might cause problems down the line. But here, marketing teams can shine bright.
Marketing’s Role in the Attention Economy.
For the general audience and the buyer, especially B2B marketing it is all about problem solving.
The adage of reaching the audience at the right time means solving a problem through content, service, or product when it pops up.
But the metaverse is supposed to mimic our experience of the real world.
Would advertising in the AR/VR world be like OOH? Shown to us at random times. Or would it be the same as a smartphone? Shown to us during a video or a piece. The latter makes more sense.
But there are more opportunities with the glasses. To elevate marketing’s standing.
As a professional and scientific field, marketing— instead of adding junk content, will be able to create content that makes the buyer think or improve their experience of the moment.
For example, if a buyer is solving a knowledge-based problem. Say they are programming with the help of glasses. And they cannot solve the problem. MarTech for AR/VR can detect this, given enough permissions. And you can present your solution.
The question is: How will you do this without invasion (remember, Orion also promises a sensory experience) and better than an AI machine?
More than dopamine hits, what a decision-maker needs is the knowledge to make better decisions. A good brand becomes synonymous with that knowledge.
As we move towards a more always-on type of society. It is necessary to make the buyer feel relaxed, in control, and knowledgeable.
The Orion and its successor may provide this stage.
Social technology will change buyer behavior.
As technology begins permeating our world, marketing will have to change to be more about providing value.
Going beyond the obvious will be the norm. Surface-level content and basic well-known knowledge will be cannibalized by AI. But what is the role of Meta in all of this?
For now, they are leading the charge toward the next stage of computation. Like Steve Jobs before him, Mark Zuckerberg’s social tech is leading the charge towards the next evolution.
The metaverse is a peek in what is the peak of human ingenuity and creativity.
But is it our entry into a revolution or just another empty promise?
Cross-border payments have streamlined transactions. And for SaaS models, this positive turn to fintech couldn’t have come at a better time.
Fintech advancements has empowered businesses to make payments across countries.
What used to take a myriad of microtransactions can be done within hours and minutes. As the invoice is generated and the payment accepted, the deal is almost immediately completed with no to little lag time. Cross-border payments have opened a world of financial possibilities for organizations and paved the way for international trade
It has made payments cost-efficient. As the SaaS market grows by a CAGR of 18.4%, B2B cross-border payment will become vital. The potential for this market is vast.
But how vast exactly?
A global workforce and global organizational collaboration facilitate a need for cross-border payments.
After the pandemic, the world saw a monumental shift in the way we worked. Marketing, sales, product teams, and operations changed. We had to collaborate remotely.
But, it also helped organizations understand the importance of a global workforce and collaborating with organizations in different countries.
But how would an organization pay or receive money? Using cross-border payment solutions.
What is Cross-border payments?
Cross-border payments are the transfer of funds and assets across international borders. The transfer is facilitated by banking institutions or fintech organizations. These cross-border transactions involve currency conversions.
Methods of Cross-border payments
Bank Transfers
International Wire Transfers
Electronic Funds Transfer
Online Payments Platform
Cryptocurrencies
More methods like credit cards and checks are used, but for this piece, we’ll touch on the idea instead of going deeper. We have a great blog that elaborates more on the concept!
These global payments helped the world streamline their transactions. Yet, it posed a challenge.
The banks took time to verify international transactions, and there is a complex process that takes time. And let us not forget the conversion fees. The entire process took valuable time and money out of the pockets of organizations.
But now, there are innovative solution. Payment service providers like Paypal, Razorpay, Stripe, Wise, and more enabled organizations to pay invoices quickly and at cost, helping them make their payments efficiently and in due time.
The emergence of new solutions and global collaboration brings a positive change.
According to allied market research, the global cross-border payments market was valued at 181.9$bn in 2022 and is projected to reach 356.5$bn by 2032 with a CAGR of 7.3%
As you can see, the cross-border payments market is growing positively. Owing to its fairly new technological innovations there is room for rapid growth in this nascent technological landscape.
Although- fintech development has made it possible for low costs and helped organizations sustain their subscriptions overseas. These solutions don’t support all countries as complex compliances, the upheaval of changing currency values, and the inherent risks of cybersecurity attacks create uncertainty.
The promise of emerging solutions and the challenges that come with it plague the market.
Businesses are looking for solutions that will streamline the entire global payment system and bring unified economic growth.
It is an exceptional piece. There are two “assets” that could be interesting to this discussion.
This quote by Pawel Szejko, CFO of XTB
“It’s easier to build something for a few countries than to build the infrastructure and the setup for the whole world”.
And that RTPs are expected to generate $173bn in additional economic output by 2026.
Essentially- the cross-border payment service infrastructure is siloed right now and presents a significant opportunity- Any solution that tackles it— will have a piece of the $173bn.
The Future
The cross-border payments market offers complex challenges and rewards. The two essential pieces in the broad fintech puzzle are: –
1. RTP (Real-time payments)
2. The blockchain
It is essential for any organization entering the market to understand the state of the two, especially blockchain. It presents a unique opportunity, although one shrouded in uncertainty. While blockchain will bring trust and clarity to the international transactions, the complexity and energy needed to run blockchains on a massive global scale are not yet present.
Even setting it up can cost an enterprise millions of dollars.
The future of this global payment method is this: It is headed in the right direction, and it needs innovation. There is still the looming threat of cybersecurity. And disconnected solutions, although the best available choices today, leave something to desire.
Organizations entering this market will find that there are many problems to solve. The question is: how will they solve them in a way that builds and improves upon the rest?
The solution which answers this question will eventually have a large piece of the market share.
Cross-border payments market size brings a promise.
The promise is global collaboration and a secure financial backbone for the entire world.
The entire globe is now operating as a singular international business. Contractors called freelancers play a vital role in changing the shape of a business. From strategies to marketing experts, the globe is filled with talented individuals. And business to business, business to customer or direct to customer or any kind is now looking to hire these talents.
Companies know that these individuals with diverse backgrounds will increase market share.
As independent contractors rise and provide their knowledge for organizational growth, the ease of these international payments will become increasingly crucial.
Whether it’s B2B payments, B2C or customer to business, these cross-border payment systems must improve the customer experience by providing real-time transfers in a secure way.
For SaaS, this will enable the growth of individual markets by helping them penetrate new borders and geographies that would have otherwise remained untouched because of currency exchange costs.
Fintech, Artificial Intelligence and the use of digital currency like blockchain promise a new future. A safe and secure way of moving money. However, new solutions that tackle these problems may take time to emerge.
They will not be able to tackle traditional banking institutions but will empower them for a better consumer experience.
